The Magpie Salute and the Stone Foxes
Sure, a lot of people are going to the Belly Up on January 15 to see San Francisco rockers the Stone Foxes, still touring in support of last year’s Visalia EP. The big draw, however, is the Black Crowes spinoff that cheekily namechecks another swarthy bird by calling themselves Magpie Salute. Founded a couple of years ago by former Crowes Rich Robinson, Sven Pipien, and Marc Ford, they just dropped their first studio album High Water 1. Robinson and Ford debuted the songs in a live setting for the first time in June, playing an acoustic set at a private event in the pastoral coastal New England town of Old Lyme, Connecticut, probably best known as home to the Nut Museum once run by the famed Nut Lady, Elizabeth Tashjian (or perhaps as the reputed birthplace of tick-borne Lyme’s disease).
At this writing, the album sits at number 33 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart, and number three on the Heatseekers chart. In concert, the music of the Magpies is usually played on shuffle between tracks from the Crowes, Rich Robinson’s Band (whose members fill out the lineup), and from Marc Ford’s demonstrably less charting solo career.